The Masks I'd Wear for You
by theglassalchemist
Summary: Aizen was used to pretending, used to hiding his true face. Who said that love would make him any different? AiIta w/ ItaIno undertones


Dark eyes did not look up as Aizen crossed the room. Though he knew the other could sense his presence there perfectly well. The book in the raven's slender hands seemed to captivate his attention but Aizen knew better, every inch of Itachi's body was already geared towards him, as attuned as he was to him by now.

Gently settling beside him strong hands reached out to brush back scattered raven tresses that fell forward across delicate porcelain features, gently turning his head as to face him.

Instantly that warm, gentle smile broke out across the human's thin lips, it was a curve Aizen could have drawn with his eyes closed – studied many a time both up close and from a far. There was a flash of mock irritation in obsidian orbs but he knew that the other could not keep up the pretense for too long, the boy was soft despite his fractured history – gentle, far too gentle.

"Don't you have places to be?" As expected, the other's words were laced with nothing more than amusement at Aizen's demanding gesture, he could not even feint the barest hint of anger despite the fact the masks he could hold were stronger even perhaps that Aizen's own. Slender fingers managed to find his own, still coveting the line of Itachi's jaw – strong yet so breakable under his inhuman touch. It would take nothing more than the slightest tightening of his grip and the bone he could feel below wafer thin skin would shatter, leaving the boy in agony. Aizen ignored the temptation.

"There is nowhere that I'd _rather _be." Aizen evaded, but he had spoken nothing but the truth. It was one he thought he would never tell Itachi, one he was barely able to tell himself, yet things had changed in a way he had never imagined they could. Not until he allowed himself to admit just how deep this interest lay.

Itachi laughed. The sound was bittersweet, the image of his lips curving into unnatural shapes clashed so harshly against the set picture of the other that Aizen held in his mind. So many times had deep, dark eyes been flat, closed off to him – features carved and set in stone, yielding nothing of the thoughts that lay beneath them. His fingers had itched to claw at the skin, peeling it away until the raw insides were left bare for him to scrutinize.

"Hm? And why is that?" The teasing edge to his words was one that Aizen did not miss, the answer to these questions was already known yet somehow he still felt the need to voice it anyway. They were words locked away, and words that did not manage to hold the connotations they did when spoken by others. Yet they were the most honest he had ever spoken.

"Because I love you."

The smirk on blush cloves softened, the happiness was so naked and exposed.

_How do you do that? Does it hurt? Does it scare you?_

These were the questions that would be left unasked, suspicions being raised if they were to ever be aired. He could hold his tongue for these precious moments, Aizen was not ready to let them go yet and he wondered idly if he ever would be. Although the timer set by human life did leave a heavy deadline hanging over his head, all the more reason he had needed to say these things _now_.

"I love you too, I-" The reciprocation came so easily and a wrenching pain tore at Aizen's chest, he could not stand more words from the other now and roughly his lips came to meet ones slightly parted – cutting off the next syllable that threatened to slip from them.

Their mouths moved testingly against one another – the barest flicker of hesitation felt in the set of the other's, though as always this would be dismissed – and Aizen's gazed stayed fixed, watching the raven even now. The touches were soft and painfully chaste. There was such an innocence, a purity to the actions - the sensation unfamiliar to Aizen, the blood that stained his hands ripping any semblance of these that he once held yet the same poison had managed to leave Itachi's intact.

"You should go…" The boy's whispered words were scattered between guarded kisses and Aizen was left frozen in a half-charade of affection, unable to tell any longer where the game began and his betraying heart ended. "He won't want to be kept waiting."

Finally his lids fell closed, shielding his eyes from the look of utter care and devotion in midnight hues, any hold he still had on the other falling with them. "Of course." He murmured, rising to his feet once more. "I'll try to be quick."

Mahogany eyes did not glance back as he fled from the room, the piercing concern of the other's gaze one he could feel on him without the need to confirm it. Aizen's own gaze also did not spare a glance to the broken frame of a girl that lay just beyond the threshold, the sight a disgusting one for reasons more than just the crimson that now stained her chest and the blankness in azure hues.

Aizen's hand rested for a moment on the sword still held at his hip, the releasing command lying in wait on his tongue… but these actions were never realized. His arm dropped back to his side once more and footsteps resumed once more – never faltering again.

The illusion could be broken, but the denial Aizen had wrapped himself in could not.


End file.
